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Ticket to Ride Pocket adds tracks to 1910 Expansion
Ticket to Ride Pocket keeps chugging along, adding the first paid expansion with Ticket to Ride Pocket: 1910. The $1 extension is based off the expansion for the board game (which is way more expensive), featuring three new modes and 35 new destinations.The three new modes include: 1910 Classic, where there's no bonus for longest route, but for completing the most tickets. 1910 Mega has players receiving five routes -- instead of three -- and there are 69 destination tickets total, instead of 35. Finally, 1910 Cities only includes major city tickets, which means players need to grab the best routes as quickly as possible and can't focus on their "section of the country" like in the normal game.The 1910 expansion comes shortly after the core $2 Ticket to Ride Pocket app, which was already a great port of the board game experience, received asynchronous play and had reached 350,000 sales earlier this month.%Gallery-148252%
Ticket to Ride Pocket updates, adds asynchronous mode
Ticket to Ride Pocket has added a major update to the train baron simulator, allowing for asynchronous gameplay. Track-layers can now conduct up to four games at once using the new multiplayer mode. The game also now permits play across iPhones, iPod Touch and iPads in local mode across Bluetooth, WiFi and telegraph wire."This is the update Ticket to Ride players have been clamoring for since we released Ticket to Ride Pocket," said Days of Wonder founder and CEO Eric Hautemont.The company also shared that sales of Ticket to Ride on iOS have reached 350,000, with over 27.6 million games played and a new one starting every four seconds. We were pretty impressed by the faithful translation of the board game when we played the $2 app over the holidays, which is also available in more expensive forms on iPad and XBLA.
Portabliss: Ticket to Ride Pocket (iOS)
Did you know that you can download handheld games now? That's amazingly convenient! The only inconvenient part of it is finding the right games to buy -- and that's where we come in, with our Portabliss column. In each installment, we'll tell you about a downloadable game on the iPhone, iPad, Android device, DSi, 3DS, PSP, etc. Today: Ticket to Ride Pocket. Ticket to Ride Pocket for iPhone is the smallest way to play the award-winning Ticket to Ride board game without concern for dozens of little pieces getting lost. Publisher Days of Wonder did an impressive job making sure the quality of the original game and interface for this $1.99 App Store title lived up to the $50 boxed version.Pocket's gameplay involves players laying track across the US to finish assigned destination cards. Routes can be as short as Toronto to Winnipeg, or transcontinental like New York to Los Angeles. The game is easy to understand and there's a detailed play-as-you-go tutorial the first time starting the game (and it is repeatable). Players draw colored cards to complete corresponding sections of rail toward the goal of finishing routes, with the player who creates the longest continuous rail scoring bonus points at the end.
TUAW Best of 2011: Vote for the best iPhone game app
The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you -- the readers -- and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We'll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often! TUAW is asking for your vote for the best iPhone game app of 2011. The apps that made it into our final voting have provided hours of fun for millions of iPhone users. The first app on the list is Jetpack Joyride (currently free) from Halfbrick Studios. Barry Steakfries, the protagonist of Jetpack Joyride, would love your vote. This app has a 4.5 star rating out of 5 possible with over 15,500 ratings on the App Store, so it is an incredibly popular iPhone game. Next in the lineup is the popular word game W.E.L.D.E.R. (US$3.99). This app has been a past iPhone Game of the Week on the App Store, and according to Tested.com, it "takes Bejeweled, Boggle, and Scrabble and smelts them into one mining-themed word puzzle." Want a board game in your pocket? Ticket to Ride Pocket ($0.99) has sold over 2 million copies, achieved Apple Game of the Week in Europe, and was #1 in the strategy games category in 32 countries. I'm betting that we'll see a lot of votes for Ticket to Ride. Scribblenauts Remix (currently on sale for $0.99) is another big hit in the App Store, gaining a 4.5 out of 5 rating with over 10,800 total ratings. It's one of the few games out there -- perhaps the only one -- where you can create just about any sort of object. The latest update even supports creating objects using voice dictation on the iPhone 4S. Our last entry in the voting for the best iPhone game app of 2011 is Sonic & SEGA All-Stars Racing ($1.99). It's an app that made it into an iPod touch ad, and it features Sonic the Hedgehog and a bunch of other SEGA characters racing in cars, monster trucks, bikes, planes and bananas... Be sure to vote for the iPhone game that you think is the top for 2011. The winner will be announced in a few days. %Poll-72086%
Daily iPhone App: Ticket to Ride Pocket
Days of Wonder's Ticket to Ride is one of the most acclaimed board game titles around, and the iPad version has done very well on the platform so far, bringing the "collect cards to build railroad routes" action of the board game to Apple's tablet. But the game didn't arrive on the iPhone until just recently -- last week, Days of Wonder finally released a smaller version that the first tutorial video calls "the simplest adaptation yet." And I'm happy to report that not only is that adaptation done as well as possible on the small screen, but it's also one of the best (and easiest, not to mention cheapest) ways to play yet. The biggest drawback of playing the game on a small screen is obviously its scale -- on a game board, you're building out trains across the country, and connecting your pieces, which is almost as fun as playing itself. On the iPad's larger screen, that physical scale holds up well, but on the iPhone's screen, Ticket to Ride feels much more like a video game than the original board game -- the main indication of the routes you're trying to build is just the green indicators on screen, not the tickets themselves. But Days of Wonder makes up for that with some really excellent music and sound effects that keep the game moving. The great tutorial system from the iPad version has been recreated here, so even if you don't know how to play, the game will do an excellent job of teaching you the rules. And once you know what you're doing, there's just as much depth and fun here as the board game itself offers (for a really small percentage of the board game price). Unfortunately, the iPad version is the only one that has online multiplayer, but the iPhone version offers up local multiplayer as well as a well-done pass-and-play mode for one device (that of course depends on your honor to keep players from sneaking a peek at their opponents' cards). Days of Wonder says that it's "unwilling to compromise" the online multiplayer experience with the various issues of cell tower Internet, but that's kind of a weak argument -- it hasn't stopped other turn-based titles from providing rock-solid multiplayer that works just fine. The other omission is expansions -- Days of Wonder says the smaller screen doesn't fit the Europe and Switzerland expansions already available via in-app purchase on the iPad, but those aren't really needed to enjoy the core game. Given the price of the game, however, you can't really argue that there's not enough to do here, even with online multiplayer missing. There's lots of AIs to play against of varying difficulties, as well as Game Center achievements and leaderboards to chase. And the game itself is only 99 cents, which is an outright steal compared to the board game's $50 price and even the iPad version's $6.99 tag. Ticket to Ride Pocket is a great title for fans of the board game, and even those who haven't checked this one out should invest the buck and see what they think.
Ticket to Ride Pocket for iPhone pulls into App Store
Ticket to Ride Pocket, the iPhone and iPod Touch version of the hit board game, is available now on the App Store for $0.99. The title supports solo play, local pass-and-play and local Wi-Fi/Bluetooth. Developer Days of Wonder has been upfront about what's missing from the iPhone version: online is out (because things like phone calls would break the experience, it says) and the level of detail and extra pieces on the Europe and Swiss map expansions don't lend themselves to the size of mobile screens. The iPad version of Ticket to Ride has been available for a little while for $6.99. There's also the XBLA version for 800 MSP ($10), and the Europe and USA maps available as DLC. Days of Wonder's adaptations have been incredibly faithful to the game, with the added value of not worrying about all those pesky pieces getting lost.
